H7 


imount 


T  H  K     O  K  N  T  R  A  L,     PRINCIPLK 


AN    ORATION 


DELIVERED    BEFORE 


THE  NEW-ENGLAND  SOCIETY  OF  NEW-YORK, 


DECEMBER  22,  1853. 


BY 


MARK    HOPKINS,     D.D 


PRESIDENT    OF    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 


NEW-YORK: 

E .    FRENCH,    12    BIBLE    HOUSE,    A  S  T  0  R    PLACE. 

1854.  r^ 


2i^i2*a*e*Q*d^&^ile*8*£<£^ 


THE     CENTRAL     PRINCIPLE. 


AN    ORATION 


DELIVERED    BEFORE 


THE  NEW-ENGLAND  SOCIETY  OF  NEW-YORK, 


DECEMBER  22,  1853, 


BY 


MAKK    HOPKINS,    D.D., 

/  / 


PRESIDENT   OF   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 


NEW-YORK: 

E.  FRENCH,  12  BIBLE  HOUSE,  ASTOR  PLACE. 

1854. 


H7 


JOHN  A.  GRAY,  Printer  and  Sterefftyper, 
95  and  97  Cliff  street,  N.Y. 


NEW-YORK,  Jan.  7,  1854. 

DEAR  SIR:  We  have  the  pleasure  to  communicate  herewith  some  resolu 
tions  of  the  New-England  Society.  The  request  contained  therein  we  beg 
you  will  early  comply  with,  that  we  may  be  able  to  gratify  the  desire  of  our 
members  to  possess  themselves  of  copies  of  your  address. 

We  are,  dear  sir,  very  truly  yours,  &c., 

CHAS.  A.  PEABODY, 
WM.  CURTIS  NOYES, 
L.  B.  WYMAN,  -  Committee. 

HENRY  A.  HURLBUT, 
PAUL  BABCOCK, 
REV.  MARK  HOPKINS,  D.D., 

Pres.  Williams  College,  &c.,  &c., 
Williamstown,  Mass. 

AT  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Officers  of  the  "New-England  Society,  in 
the  City  of  New- York,"  held  at  the  Astor  House  on  the  fifth  day  of  January, 
the  following  resolutions  were  adopted : 

"Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  New-England  Society,  in  the  city  of  New- 
York,  be  presented  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hopkins  for  the  very  able  and  instructive  ad 
dress  delivered  on  the  22d  December  last,  and  that  he  be  requested  to  furnish  a 
copy  for  publication. 

"Resolved,  That  the  Committee  of  Arrangements  be  requested  to  communicate  to 
Dr.  Hopkins  a  copy  of  the  foregoing  resolutions,  and  that  they  be  authorized  to 
publish  such  number  of  the  address  as  they  may  deem  expedient." 

M.  H.  GRINNELL,  President 

EPHRAIM  KJXGSBURY,  Secretary. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE,  Jan.  13,  1854. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  In  accordance  with  the  resolutions  of  the  Board  of  Officers 
of  the  New-England  Society  forwarded  by  you,  and  with  my  acknowledge 
ments  for  the  kind  manner  in  which  it  is  spoken  of,  the  address  delivered  by 
me  on  the  22d  ult.  is  hereby  placed  at  their  disposal. 

Most  respectfully  and  truly  yours, 

MARK  HOPKINS. 
C.  A.  PEABODY,  ESQ. 


M114257 


• 


ORATION. 


THE  celebrations  and  amusements  of  a  people  indi 
cate  their  character.  A.  populace,  such  as  despotism  and 
superstition  produce  and  imply,  require  to  be  amused 
by  pageants,  and  processions,  and  sports,  and  masque 
rades.  Giving  up  the  care  of  their  government  to  the 
king,  and  of  their  salvation  to  the  priest,  what  have 
they  to  do  but  to  convert  their  holy-days  into  holidays, 
and  when  a  prescribed  formality  has  satisfied  the  con 
science,  to  follow  a  monkey,  or  a  tumbler,  to  visit  the 
cock-pit  or  the  gaming-table,  "to  be  gay,  and,  shall  I  say, 
happy? — no,  not  happy — but  to  be  amused :  and  ma 
naged  like  grown-up  children.  To  such,  the  idea  of  a 
Sabbath  as  a  day  of  holy  rest,  is  inconceivable. 

A  people,  on  the  other  hand,  reflective,  self-governed, 
feeling  their  individual  and  immediate  responsibility  to 
God,  will  create  an  atmosphere  stifling  to  all  pageantry 
and  mummery.  They  will  keep  their  Sabbaths ;  their 
festivities  will  be  irradiated  by  a  rational  joy,  and  their 
celebrations  and  holidays  will  not  be  without  something 
to  strengthen  principle,  and  nourish  the  affections. 
These  days  will  be  consecrated  to  the  progress  of  the 
peaceful  arts;  they  will  commemorate  the  bounties  of 


Frpyidepce,:  tthe  Struggles  and  triumplis  of  freedom,  the 
;piet'j  .and  .'heroism  .of  Pilgrim  Fathers. 
' :  Pilgrim*  Fader's  I  •'  What  wealth  of  hallowed  associa 
tions  is  garnered  in  these  words  !  By  what  others  in 
the  English  language  should  we  prefer  to  designate  our 
ancestors  ? 

They  were  Pilgrims — and  such  Pilgrims.  They 
sought  no  shrine  already  hallowed.  Not  by  super 
stition,  or  fanaticism,  or  the  love  of  adventure,  or 
desire  for  gain,  singly  or  combined,  were  they  moved ; 
but,  like  Abraham,  they  went  out  in  the  grandeur  of 
simple  faith,  not  knowing  whither  they  went.  They 
went,  as  they  themselves  say,  "  with  the  great  hope  and 
irlward  seal  they  had  of  laying  some  good  foundation 
for  the  propagating  and  advancing  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  in  these  remote  parts  of  the  world."* 

That  the  object  assigned  by  them  was  their  great  ob 
ject,  God  has  been  careful  to  make  evident,  not  from 
testimony  alone,  but  precisely  as  he  did  in  the  case  of 
the  Apostles  and  first  Christians.  So  close  indeed  is  the 
parallel,  in  circumstances,  in  character,  and  in  results, 
that  the  same  language  will  apply  to  both. 

It  was  only  through  long  inward  struggles,  and 
searchings  of  the  Scriptures,  and  much  prayer,  that  both 
were  brought  to  separate  themselves  from  a  Church  in 
which  they  were  born,  but  which  had  substituted  the 
traditions  of  man  for  the  word  of  God,  and  the  forms 
of  religion  instead  of  its  spirit.  And  in  making  this 
separation,  the  temper  and  sincerity  of  both  were  tried 

*  Young's  Chronicles. 


to  the  utmost.  Both  were  forbidden  to  preach  or  to 
teach  under  heavy  penalties,  were  imprisoned,  deprived 
of  their  property,  put  to  death,  driven  from  their 
country  and  scattered  abroad  by  persecution.  Both 
were  placed  socially  under  ban,  and  utterly  scorned  by 
all  that  passed  for  refinement  in  their  day — were  re 
garded  as  "  the  filth  of  the  earth,  and  the  off-scouring  of 
all  things."  Against  both,  Providence  itself  and  the  very 
elements  sometimes  seemed  to  conspire,  as  when  Paul 
was  imprisoned  for  years,  and  was  shipwrecked,  and 
was  a  night  and  a  day  in  the  deep  ;  and  when  the  Pil 
grims  attempted  to  leave  England,  and  the  enemy 
came  upon  them  and  divided  their  families,  and  the 
storm  arose. 

But  in  these  trials  they  were  alike  patient  and  confi 
dent  in  God.  Paul  could  say,  "  I  'know  whom  I  have 
believed."  John  Penry  could  say  just  before  his  mar 
tyrdom,  "  I  testify  unto  you  for  mine  own  part,  as  I 
shall  answer  it  before  Jesus  Christ,  and  his  elect  angels, 
that  I  never  saw  any  truth  more  clear  and  more  un 
doubted  than  this  witness  wherein  we  stand."  Paul 
could  say,  "  I  am  ready  to  be  offered."  Penry  could 
say,  "And  I  thank  my  God,  I  am  not  only  ready  to  be 
bound  and  banished,  but  even  to  die  for  this  cause,  by 
his  strength."  Paul  could  say,  "  I  am  in  a  strait  betwixt 
two,  having  a  desire  to  depart  and  be  with  Christ, 
which  is  far  better" — but  added — "Nevertheless,  to 
abide  in  the  flesh  is  more  needful  for  you."  Penry  could 
say,  "  I  greatly  long,  in  regard  of  myself,  to  be  dissolved 
and  to  live  in  the  blessed  kingdom  of  heaven  with 
Jesus  Christ  and  his  angels."  And  he  too  could  add, 


."I  would  indeed,  if  it  be  his  good  pleasure,  lire  yet 
with  you  to  help  you  bear  that  grievous  and  hard  yoke 
which  ye  are  like  to  sustain,  either  here  or  in  a  strange 
land."  And  if  the  Apostle  had  had  a  wife  and  child 
ren,  he  could  hardly  have  committed  them  with  stronger 
faith  to  exile  and  the  promises.  "And  here,"  says 
Penry,  "  I  humbly  beseech  you,  not  in  any  outward  re 
gard,  as  I  shall  answer  it  before  my  God,  that  you  would 
take  my  poor  and  desolate  widow,  and  mess  of  fatherless 
and  friendless  orphans,  with  you  into  exile  whitherso 
ever  you  may  go,  and  you  shall  find,  I  doubt  not,  that 
the  blessed  promises  of  my  God  made  to  me  and  mine 
will  accompany  you.  *  *  *  Only  I  beseech  you,  let 
them  not  continue  after  you  in  this  land,  where  they 
must  be  forced  to  go  again  into  Egypt." 

Such  was  their  spirit?  Persons  of  all  conditions  and 
of  all  ages  were  thus  sustained  through  years  of  destitu 
tion  and  suffering.  Some  dying  in  prison,  as  Neale 
says,  "  like  rotten  sheep,"  and  some  enduring  the  perils 
and  hardships  of  the  wilderness ;  but  all  cheerful  and 
confident  in  God. 

Nor  were  these  persons,  as  a  body,  more  than  the 
early  Christians,  narrow,  or  bigoted,  or  sour,  or  fanatical, 
or  turbulent,  or  seekers  of  novelties.  Says  Robinson  : 
"As  they  that  affect  alienation  from  others  ma*ke  their 
differences  as  great,  and  the  adverse  opinion  or  practice 
as  odious  as  they  can,  thereby  to  further  their  desired 
victory  over  them,  and  to  harden  themselves  and  their 
side  against  them,  so,  on  the  contrary,  they  who  desire 
peace  and  accord,  both  interpret  things  in  the  best  part 
they  reasonably  can,  and  seek  how  and  where  they  may 


9 

'find  any  lawful  door  of  entry  into  accord  and  agree 
ment  with  others :  of  which  latter  number  I  profess 
myself,  by  the  grace  of  God,  both  a  companion  and  a 
guide,  especially  in  regard  of  my  Christian  country 
men  *  *  accounting  it  a  cross  that  I  am  compelled,  in 
any  particular,  to  dissent  from  them,  but  a  benefit  and 
matter  of  rejoicing  when  I  can  in  any  thing,  with  good 
conscience,  unite  with  them  in  matter,  if  not  in  manner, 
or,  where  it  may  be,  in  both."*  "  We  uphold,"  says  he, 
"  whatsoever  manifest  good  we  know  in  the  Church  of 
England,  whether  doctrine,  ordinance,  or  personal  grace, 
to  our  utmost.  We  do  acknowledge  in  it  many  excel 
lent  truths  of  doctrine  which  we  also  teach  without 
commixture  of  error  ;  many  Christian  ordinances  which 
we  also  practice — being  purged  from  the  pollution  of 
Anti-Christ — and  for  the  godly  persons  in  it,  could  we 
possibly  separate  them  from  the  profane,  we  would 
gladly  embrace  them  with  both  arms."f  How  noble  this 
in  a  persecuted  and  exiled  man !  So  far  were  they  from 
seeking  novelties,  that  he  says :  "  But  we,  for  our  parts, 
as  we  do  believe,  by  the  word  of  God,  that  the  things 
that  we  teach  are  not  new,  but  old  truths  renewed,  so> 
are  we  no  less  fully  persuaded  that  the  church  constitu 
tion  in  which  we  are  set  is  cast  in  the  apostolic  and  pri 
mitive  mould,  and  not  one  day  nor  hour  younger,  in  the 
nature  and  form  of  it,  than  the  first  Church  of  the  New 
Testament.":}: 

Our  fathers  had  no  "  mad  rage"  against  what  Hume 
calls  "  inoffensive    observances,   surplices,   corner-caps 

*  Works,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  354.   f  Works,  vol.  ii.,,pp.  14.   \  Works,  vol.  iii,,  pp.  43. 


10 

and  tippets."*  They  contended  for  a  great  principle, 
precisely  as  Paul  did.  As  a  matter  of  expediency,  Paul 
took  Timothy  and  circumcised  him.  He  cared  nothing  . 
about  circumcision  one  way  or  the  other,  but  when  it 
was  attempted  to  impose  circumcision  as  binding,  and 
the  great  principle  of  religious  liberty  was  at  stake,  he 
"gave  subjection  to  them,  no,  not  for  an  hour."  He 
was  then  as  precise  as  any  Puritan  ever  was,  and  would 
have  gone  to  prison  and  to  death  for  a  thing  indifferent 
in  itself,  just  as  the  Puritans  did.  When  a  great  prin 
ciple  is  in  question,  it  matters  little  what  brings  the 
conflict  on.  It  may  be  a  sixpenny  tax,  or  a  pound  of 
tea,  or  a  tippet,  or  a  surplice.  No  body  cares  any  thing 
about  the  tea  or  the  tippet ;  but  we  thank  God  that 
there  have  been  men  who  would  set  a  continent  on  fire, 
and  spend  millions  of  money,  and  lay  down-  their  lives, 
rather  than  pay  that  sixpenny  tax  when  its  payment 
would  have  conceded  the  right  to  exact  it ;  and  we 
thank  God  that  there  have  been  men  who,  rather  than 
wear  a  tippet  or  surplice,  when  to  have  done  so  would 
have  compromised  the  great  principle  of  religious  liberty, 
0  would  go  to  prison  and  to  death. 

But  those  who  urge  that  the  Puritans  were  over-scru 
pulous,  may  not  perceive  that  that  is  a  two-edged  sword ; 
for  if  the  points  were  thus  indifferent,  what  shall  we 
say  of  the  intense  bigotry  and  narrowness  of  those  who, 
for  want  of  conformity  in  things  indifferent,  could  turn 
two  thousand  ministers  from  their  pulpits,  and  imprison 
men,  and  put  them  to  death  ?•  No,  both  parties  under- 

*  See  the  Puritans  and  their  Principles,  by  Dr.  Hall,  Int.  Lect. 


11 

stood  well  what  they  were  contending  for,  and  if  the 
Puritans  had  submitted  to  the  imposition  of  tippets  and 
surplices,  this  continent  would  have  had  another  his 
tory. 

And  this  leads  me  to  say,  that  the  seal  of  God  in  the 
success  and  moral  glory  that  have  crowned  their  enter 
prise  has  not  been  less  unequivocal  in  the  case  of  our 
fathers  than  in  that  of  the  early  Christians.  In  each 
case  there  was  but  "  a  handful  of  corn  in  the  earth,  and 
God  made  the  fruit  thereof  to  shake  as  Lebanon."  The 
sun  does  not  look  down  upon  better  results  of  a  pure 
Christianity  in  families,  in  churches,  in  schools  and  col 
leges,  in  missions,  and  in  civil  freedom,  than  can  be 
traced  directly  and  wholly  to  their  sufferings  and  labors. 
If  we  consider  their  feeble  beginnings,  and  the  obsta 
cles  they  had  to  encounter,  the  world  has  seen  nothing  ^ 
like  it. 

Nor  is  it  in  this  country  alone  that  the  fruits  of  their 
principles  are  seen.  The  civil  liberty  of  England  was 
from  them  alone.  Not  to  mention  the  explicit  passage 
so  often  quoted  from  Hume,  Lord  King  says  :  "As  for 
toleration,  or  any  true  notion  of  religious  liberty,  or  any 
general  freedom  of  conscience,  we  owe  them  not  in  the 
least  degree  to  what  is  called  the  Church  of  England. 
On  the  contrary,  we  owe  all  these  to  the  Independents 
in  the  time  of  the  commonwealth,  and  to  Locke,  their 
most  illustrious  and  enlightened  disciple."  "  I  fearlessly 
confess  it,"  says  Lord  Brougham,  as  if  it  required  even 
yet  no  little  courage  to  speak  the  truth  of  the  Puritans, 
"  with  whatever  ridicule  some  may  visit  their  excesses, 
or  with  whatever  blame  others,  they,  with  the  zeal  of 


12 

martyrs,  and  the  purity  of  early  Christians,  the  skill  and 
courage  of  the  most  renowned  warriors,  obtained  for 
England  the  free  constitution  she  enjoys."* 

If,  then,  we  except  miracles,  what  seal  which  God  set 
upon  the  labors  and  sufferings  of  the  early  Christians 
has  he  withheld  from  those  of  our  fathers  ?  We  claim 
for  them  no  perfection,  but  we  see  in  them  serious,  ear 
nest,  prayerful,  intelligent,  self-denying  Christians,  wit 
nesses  for  God,  and  on  the  whole,  the  best  representa 
tives  and  truest  successors  of  the  Apostles  and  early 
Christians  then  on  the  earth.  We  even  venture  to  ques 
tion  whether  John  Penry,  a  minister  regularly  ordained, 
with  so  many  points  of  resemblance  to  the  Apostle 
Paul,  and  like  him  laying  down  his  life  for  the  cause  of 
Christ,  was  not  quite  as  much  in  the  true  line  of  apos 
tolical  succession  as  the  Archbishop  who  signed  his 
death-warrant. 

Our  fathers,  then,  in  coming  to  this  country,  were 
pilgrims  of  the  highest  order ;  not  simply  wanderers, 
but  wanderers  as  Abraham  was,  because  they  too 
"  sought  a  city  that  hath  foundations."  As  such  we 
venerate  them.  We  rejoice  at  the  incorporation  into 
their  designation  of  a  term  which  also  designates  the 
subliraest  feature  of  human  existence,  and  which  should 
teach  us  and  each  of  their  descendants  to  say,  "  I  am  a 
pilgrim,  and  I  am  a  stranger  on  the  earth." 

And  the  Pilgrims  were  also  Fathers.  Far  beyond  any 
other  founders  of  states  does  this  title  belong  to  them. 
Their  purpose  was  to  lay  foundations.  They  brought 

*  The  Puritans  and  their  Principles,  Int.  Lect. 


their  families  with  them.  They  had  tenderness,  and  fore 
thought,  and  self-denying  labor,  and  prayerful  anxiety. 
No  characteristic  was  wanting  that  could  entitle  them 
to  that  tender  and  venerable  name. 

They  were  Pilgrims,  and  they  were  Fathers ;  travellers 
towards  a  better  country,  that  is,  an  heavenly ;  and 
the  fathers  and  founders  of  a  mighty  empire  on  the 
earth. 

As  Pilgrim  Fathers,  their  immediate  gift  to  the  world 
was  New-England.  From  them  and  their  institutions, 
in  connection  with  their  maritime  position,  and  the  cli 
mate  and  soil  and  scenery  of  the  country,  has  originated 
the  general  type  of  character  which  belongs  to  her  peo 
ple.  These  institutions,  this  general  type  of  character, 
we  accept  as  ours,  and  rejoice  in  them.  In  the  light 
of  history,  which  shows  the  tendency  of  the  sterner  and 
the  more  hardy  virtues  to  deteriorate  where  the  soil  is 
fertile  and  the  climate  genial,  we  are  thankful  that  our 
fathers  were  directed  to  a  land  that  necessitated  indus 
try  and  frugality,  and  stimulated  enterprise  and  inven 
tion  ;  fitted,  much  of  it,  as  has  been  said,  to  produce 
nothing  but  ice  and  granite. 

'This  land  we  love.  We  love  her  scenery,  her  green 
mountains,  her  transparent  streams,  her  long  summer 
days,  her  gorgeous  autumns,  her  clear,  sharp,  frosty 
mornings,  her  winter  evenings,  her  tasteful  and  thriving 
villages,  her  district  school-houses,  her  frequent  spires, 
and  her  quiet  Sabbaths.  We  glory  in  her  people ;  in 
their  system  of  free  schools,  in  their  general  intelligence 
and  shrewd  practical  sense,  in  their  inventions,  their  eco 
nomy  that  saves  to  give,  their  true-hearted  kindness. 


14 

• 

their  enlarged  and  far-seeing  benevolence,  their  care  for 
the  insane  and  the  deaf  and  dumb  and  blind,  in  their 
religious  missions  that  circle  the  globe,  in  their  love  of 
a  rational  liberty,  and  in  their  general  reverence  for  the 
law  under  its  simplest  forms. 

ISFor  are  we  over  sensitive  to  the  provincialisms  and 
uncouthnesses  of  here  and  there  a  "live"  and  unmitigated 
Yankee,  though  he  may  flatten  the  ou,  and  whittle, 
and  ask  questions,  and  boast  absurdly.  Others  smack 
of  the  soil  they  grew  in  as  strongly  as  he.  If  he  do 
whittle,  he  will  commonly  whittle  his  way ;  his  ques 
tions  are  apt  to  be  to  the  point ;  and  if  he  boasts  that 
he  is  going  to  "  cut  all  creation  out,"  who  more  likely  to 
doit? 

If,  then,  the  fathers  had  simply  given  the  world 
New-England,  it  might  have  been  well  for  her  sons  to 
associate  themselves,  as  do  others,  to  cherish  local  asso 
ciations  and  family  traits,  and  to  keep  alive  that  home- 
feeling,  which  is  an  ornament  and  a  pleasure  to  the  indi 
vidual,  while  it  narrows  neither  his  vision  nor  his  heart 
to  the  perception  or  love  of  all  that  is  peculiar  and  good 
in  other  forms  of  society. 

But  if  this  had  been  all,  this  day  had  not  been  cele 
brated  as  it  has  been,  with  persistency  and  enthusiasm, 
from  Plymouth  rock  to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  We 
do  not  honor  the  Pilgrims  simply  as  the  Fathers  of 
New-England,  but  because  they  were  the  depositories 
and  best  representatives  then  on  the  earth  of  the  one 
central  principle  on  which  the  hopes  of  the  race  rest, 
the  progress  of  which  measures  the  world's  progress, 
and  gives  unity  to  its  history. 


15 

Here  a  wide  field  at  once  opens  before  us,  but  the 
time  will  permit  us  only  to  inquire — 

1st.  Whether  there  be  such  a  principle  of  unity. 

2cl.  What  it  is  ;  and 

3d.  Whether  its  ascendency  would  secure  to  society 
all  that  is  desirable. 

Is  there,  then,  indeed,  the  unity  just  spoken  of  in  the 
history  of  this  world  ?  Is  there  any  one  central  princi 
ple  from  their  relation  to  which  the  early  dispersion  of 
families,  the  settlement  of  continents,  the  rise  and  fall 
of  kingdoms,  the  waxing  and  waning  of  civilizations, 
and  the  transfer  of  the  seats  of  empire  have  derived 
their  chief  significancy  ?  Have  they  been  parts  of  a 
great  whole,  subservient  to  some  one  end  ? 

That  they  have  we  can  not  doubt,  though  we  may  be 
unable  to  see  the  connection  with  it  of  remote,  and  de 
cayed,  and  lost  races.  The  early  limbs  of  the  pine 
perish,  and  leave  no  trace  on  the  smooth  shaft  when 
centuries  have  gone  by,  and  it  lifts  itself  a  hundred  feet 
into  the  air ;  but  doubtless  they  contribute  to  make  it 
what  it  is.  Such  a  unity  we  can  trace  in  all  the  fixed 
combinations,  and.  circular  and  improgressive  move 
ments  of  the  works  of  God.  These  have  evident  refer 
ence  to  an  end  beyond  themselves,  as  the  loom  with  its 
recurring  movement  to  the  pattern  it  finishes  and  passes 
on.  The  earth  stands  now,  and  the  seasons  revolve, 
and  day  and  night  succeed  each  other  as  they  did  six 
thousand  years  ago.  The  force  of  gravitation,  the  light 
of  the  sun,  the  capacity  of  the  earth  and  air,  of  fire  and 
water,  to  minister  to  vegetable  and  animal  life,  are  the 
same  now  as  then.  These  fixed  combinations  and  re 


16 

curring  movements  are  subservient  to  vegetable  and 
animal  life.  Moreover,  in  every  individual  plant,  and 
in  every  animal,  are  parts  that  minister  to  the  well- 
being  of  the  whole,  and  then  that  whole  thus  ministered 
unto,  offers  itself  to  minister  to  somewhat  higher,  till 
we  reach  man,  who  takes  up  into  himself  every  faculty 
and  law  in  all  below  him,  thus  crowning  the  whole,  and 
showing  that  it  is  in  subserviency  to  his  well-being  that 
it  all  finds  its  unity.  How  beautiful  and  grand  this 
permanent  order  and  subserviency,  this  circling  of  day 
and  night,  and  of  the  seasons,  and  this  ministration  from 
age  to  age  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  to  the  success 
ive  generations  of  men ! 

And  is  there  a  unity  so  vast  and  perfect  in  this  fixed 
and  improgressive  order  of  things,  that  is  but  secondary, 
and  shall  there  be  none  in  the  flow  of  time,  in  the  suc 
cession  of  the  generations,  in  the  onward  sweep  and 
termination  of  the  great  current  of  providential  move 
ments?  Shall  there  be  no  thought  or  purpose,  or 
informing  idea  of  God,  giving  its  unity  to  this  vast  on 
ward  movement,  and  which  is  ultimately  to  protrude 
itself  as  the  blossom  from  the  stem,  and  then  be  recog 
nized  as  the  end  toward  which  every  secret  process 
,and  the  slow  changes  of  the  ages  had  been  tending? 
We  believe  there  is  such  a  central  idea — it  is  the  teach 
ing  both  of  Scripture  and  of  reason — and  if  so,  then  in 
that,  and  in  that  alone,  will  be  found  the  key  to  all 
history;  and  from  their  relation  to  that,  the  signifi- 
cancy  and  grandeur  of  events,  however  splendid  or 
humble  in  their  outward  aspect,  will  be  estimated. 

We  next  inquire  then,  what  that  principle  is  ?     It 


17 

can  not  be  the  religious  freedom  so  often  spoken  of  in 
connection  with  the  Pilgrims ;  for  that  may  be  where 
there  is  no  religion,  but  in  its  stead  indifference  and  in 
fidelity.  Such  a  freedom  could  avail  little.  That  which 
is  to  bless  the  world  is  not  mere  freedom  of  any  kind, 
but  true  religion  putting  itself  forth  in  freedom,  and 
vindicating,  in  the  name  of  God.  all  the  rights  and  means 

O7  /  O 

necessary  to  its  full  expansion.  The  central  purpose  and 
principle  in  the  onward  movement  of  this  world  we  sup 
pose  then  to  be,  the  vital  union  of  man  with  God  in 
moral  conformity  to  liim,  and  so  in  preparation  for  an  ,<y 
eternal  life.  So  only  do  we  find  an  extension  of  the 
unity  and  subserviency  we  see  in  all  things,  by  linking 
earth  and  time  to  heaven  and  an  eternal  progression. 
This  is  the  principle — for  this  the  world  stands ;  but  for 
this,  religious  freedom  will  be  needed,  and  the  demand 
for  that  will  bring  men  into  such  relations  to  human 
governments  that  that  will  be  the  thing  immediately 
contended  for — the  point  around  which  the  conflict  will 
be  waged.  It  has  been  no  love  for  freedom  in  the  ab 
stract,  but  of  freedom  for  the  sake  of  religion  that  has 
walked  in  the  fiery  furnace,  and  gone  into  the  lion's 
den,  and  said  to  rulers,  "  We  ought  to  obey  God  rather 
than  men,"  and  so  has  drawn  on  and  sustained  a  resist 
ance  to  oppression  that  has  been  the  basis  of  all  the 
civil  freedom  now  in  the  world,  All  other  freedoms 
have  died  out,  and  will  die.  This  alone  has  the  sap  of  ^ 
an  immortal  life. 

The  object  of  religion  must  be  the  free  expansion  and 
perfecting  of  that  in  man  by  which  he  is  capable  of  re 
ligion.     If,  then,  the  religious  nature  be  central  in  man, 
2 


18 

it  must  be  that  for  which,  all  things  are  preparing  a 
final  expansion  and  appropriate  sphere. 

That  this  is  so  appears  because  the  religious  nature  is 
that  which  is  central  in  the  unity  of  the  individual  man. 
Each  man  has  in  himself  a  unity  no  less  than  nature 
and  the  whole  onward  scheme  of  things,  and  the  one  is 
analagous  to  the  other.  In  the  powers  that  upbuild 
and  sustain  the  body,  as  those  of  nutrition  and  circula 
tion,  man  has  a  circular  and  improgressive  system,  that 
goes  on  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  life  of  the 
individual — as  the  movements  causing  day  and  night, 
and  the  seasons  go  on  in  nature  till  the  end  of  the  life 
of  the  race ;  and  this  improgressive  system  in  each  man 
is  to  the  unfolding  and  progressive  life  of  his  mind  what 
the  movements  of  nature  are  to  the  unfolding  and  pro 
gressive  life  of  the  race.  This  system  is  for  the  sake  of 

Cy 

the  intellect  with  its  perceptions  and  deductions  ;  and 
this  again  for  the  emotions,  as  of  beauty  and  sublimity 
when  we  regard  things,  and  of  complacency  and  love 
when  we  regard  persons.  But  of  the  emotions,  the  high 
est  are  those  which  are  involved  in  the  love  of  man, 
and  in  worship — in  the  love  and  worship  of  the  Infinite 
One ;  and  thus  that  love  of  God  and  of  man,  in  which 
the  Bible  declares  true  religion  to  consist,  is  precisely 
that  the  capacity  for  which  philosophy  will  show  lies 
deepest  in  our  nature,  and  gives  it  its  unity.  It  is  the 
central  blossom,  as  in  the  palm  tree,  without  the  ex 
pansion  of  which  no  individual  reaches  his  full  develop 
ment.  But  what  is  thus  true  of  the  individual,  must  be 
true  of  the  race. 

It  may  be  observed,  too,  that  as  the  natural  order  of 


19 

the  growth  of  the  individual  is,  first  the  physical  powers, 
then  the  intellect,  and  then  the  religious  nature  ;  so 
in  the  history  of  the  world  there  has  been,  first, 
the  ascendency  of  physical  prowess,  then  of  intellect ; 
and  that  now,  when  the  whole  world  is  known,  and 
commerce  and  science  are  bringing  all  parts  of  it  to 
gether,  religion  is  casting  the  eye  of  faith  over  it  all 
and  preparing  for  its  conquest. 

That  the  religious  element  is  central,  appears  also 
from  the  necessity  of  a  true  religion  to  any  permanent 
progress  or  elevation  of  the  race.  How  can  man  be 
elevated  except  as  there  is  that  above  him  of  which  he 
may  lay  hold,  and  with  which  he  may  commune  ?  We 
must  be  gradually  transformed  into  the  likeness  of  that 
Avith  which  we  commune  voluntarily  and  with  pleasure, 
and  whoever  reaches  a  point  where  he  supposes  there 
is  nothing,  or  communes  with  nothing  higher  and  bet 
ter  than  himself,  has  reached  a  point  where  all  elevation 
must  cease.  Hence  a  man  can  do  nothing  so  fatal  to 
the  best  hopes  of  the  race  as  to  lower  the  character  of 
God,  or  to  weaken  the  impression  it  is  adapted  to  make 
on  the  minds  of  men.  No  heathen  nation  can  make 
permanent  progress. 

The  same  thing  appears  from  the  absurdities  which 
men  have  received,  and  the  impositions  to  which  they 
have  submitted  in  connection  with  religion.  You  may 
connect  a  heavy  burden  with  the  child  on  the  back  of 
the  Indian  mother,  and  she  will  bear  it  if  you  can  make 
her  believe,  either  that  it  is  only  the  weight  of  the 
child,  or  that  they  are  so  inseparably  connected  that  if 
she  would  get  loose  from  the  one  she  must  abandon  the 


20 

other.  How  else  but  by  connecting  them  with  that 
which  is  deepest  and  dearest,  could  men  have  been  made 
to  submit  to  the  absurdities  and  impositions  of  Brah- 
minism  and  of  Popery  ? 

Again,  as  has  been  said,  it  is  only  through  this  that 
this  world  can  become  a  part  in  the  unity  of  one  great 
moral  system,  the  existence  of  which  is  indicated  by 
analogy,  and  confirmed  by  Scripture,  and  to  which  the 
vast  physical  universe  revealed  by  the  telescope  must 
be  wholly  subordinate. 

Once  more,  if  we  search  history  for  the  cause  of  the 
most  earnest  and  pervading  movements  in  the  past,  we 
shall  come  to  the  same  conclusion.  From  religion  in 
deed  has  proceeded  the  only  movement  that  has  been 
continuous  from  the  beginning.  What  but  the  religious 
element  could  have  kept  the  Jews  a  distinct  people  for 
4000  years  ?  What  else  could  have  caused  the  Christ 
ian  movement  ?  Think  as  we  may  of  the  religion,  the 
amount  of  thought  and  labor,  and  of  expenditure,  both 
of  money  and  of  life,  that  have  sprung  from  it,  the 
revolutions  it  has  wrought,  not  only  in  religion,  but  in 
philosophies,  in  art,  in  government,  in  social  life  and 
the  forms  of  civilization,  and  that  too  in  spite  of  the 
fiercest  opposition,  show  the  power  of  an  element  like 
one  of  the  great  forces  of  nature,  that  "  spreads  undi 
vided,  operates  unspent."  What  but  this  could  have 
produced  the  Mohammedan  movement,  so  volcanic, 
resistless  and  persistent  ?  To  this  day  it  is  not  spent, 
but  still  stands  so  sturdily  'and  glares  so  fiercely  on  all 
who  would  attack  it,  that  Christian  missionaries  turn 
aside  to  more  hopeful  fields.  In  the  present  war  be- 


21 

tween  Turkey  and  Russia,  we  all  know  what  will  infuse 
into  the  conflict  its  fiercest,  most  destructive  and  unma 
nageable  elements.  Through  what  slumbering  element 
but  this  could  all  Europe  have  been  precipitated  in  the 
crusades,  like  a  fiery  flood  upon  Asia  ?  What  else  could 
have  produced  the  intense  movement  of  the  Reforma 
tion,  and  drawn  the  sharp  lines  of  division  that  have 
sprung  from  it  ?  These  are  the  great  movements  of 
the  race — the  continents  in  the  sea  of  history,  embo 
soming  the  lesser  movements  which  spring  from  divi 
sions  into  races,  and  the  love  of  conquest,  and  personal 
and  family  ambition. 

Nor  has  the  influence  of  the  religious  principle  been 
less  where  it  has  not  been  ostensibly  the  dominant  ele 
ment.  By  all  lawgivers  and  despots,  whose  immediate 
object  has  been  power,  religion  has  been  so  incorporated 
into  the  state  as  to  be  subservient  to  the  purposes  of 
ambition,  and  has  really  been  the  cement  of  all  endur 
ing  despotisms.  It  has  been  the  art  of  king-craft  and 
of  priestcraft  to  identify  the  interests  of  the  clergy  with 
those  of  the  ruling  powers,  and  so  to  train  the  religious 
sentiment  as  to  make  the  support  of  despotism  obedi 
ence  to  God.  Hence,  James  of  England,  though  he  had 
in  Scotland  professed  himself  a  Presbyterian,  said  he 
hated  the  Independents  worse  than  he  did  the  Catholics. 
Hence  the  affinity  of  every  reactionary  and  monarchi 
cal  government  in  France  for  the  Jesuits,  and  the  fact 
that  Protestantism  has  been  uniformly  persecuted  there. 
It  is  felt  that  the  religious  liberty  which  it  implies  and 
cherishes,  especially  in  searching  the  Scriptures,  the 
thought  which  it  requires,  the  direct  responsibility  to 


God  which  it  teaches,  and  the  power  of  a  free  con 
science  which  it  educates,  are  antagonistic  to  the  spirit 
of  despotism.  And  so  they  are.  Religious  freedom 
would  fit  men  for  civil  freedom,  and  eventuate  in 
that. 

V  And  here  I  may  remark,  that  it  is  this  want  of  con- 
gruity  between  Protestantism  in  its  true  spirit  and  the 
forms  of  government  in  Europe  that,  more  than  all  other 
causes,  has  prevented  its  more  rapid  and  wider  spread 
there,  and  that  has  enabled  the  Pope  to  recover  regions 
once  lost.  The  rulers  have  not  heartily  seconded  its 
efforts ;  they  have  feared  it,  and  do  now.  They  watched 
its  first  risings  ;  they  counter- work  and  stamp  it  out  as 
they  would  fire.  It  is  the  presence  of  this  in  Turkey 
that  Nicholas  fears,  and  its  suppression  has  more  to  do 
with  the  politics  of  Europe  than  appears  on  the  sur 
face. 

It  would  appear,  then,  that  even  where  place  and 
power  have  been  primarily  sought,  the  controlling  ele 
ment  has  still  been  the  religious  one.  This  philosophers 
and  statesmen  have  sometimes  scorned  as  a  weakness 
and  superstition,  but  they  have  never  been  able  to  dis 
regard  it  with  impunity,  and  often  they  have  been  as 
tonished  and  baffled  by  its  flaming  up  where  they  least 
expected  it. 

Now  it  was  the  growth  of  this  in  freedom,  that  was 
the  great  idea  or  principle  that  was  in  our  fathers,  and 
wrought  in  them,  and  has  come  down  through  them  to 
us.  We  are  not  of  those  who  disclaim  antiquity  and 
discard  transmission  and  succession,  and  fail  to  connect 
ourselves  with  a  vital  and  organized  past.  If  we  be- 


23 

lieve  less  than  some  in  the  regular  succession  of  the 
Popes,  and  in  the  transmission  for  eighteen  hundred 
years,  often  through  murderous  hands,  of  spiritual  vir 
tues  and  powers,  we  do  believe  in  the  perpetual  presence 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  as  of  the  Shekinah,  in  his  Church, 
and  in  a  succession  for  six  thousand  years,  in  one  unbro 
ken  line  from  the  first  martyr,  through  Moses  and  Da 
niel  and  the  Apostles,  of  those  who  have  inherited  the 
promises  and  died  in  faith  ;  and  in  the  transmission 
through  them,  so  that  they  have  always  lived  and 
glowed  somewhere,  of  the  great  ideas  of  God's  supre 
macy,  and  of  man's  right  to  worship  him  according  to 
the  dictates  of  his  conscience.  In  this  line  our  fathers 
stood,  these  ideas  flaming  up  in  them  like  a  beacon-light ; 
they  stood,  worthy  successors  of  those  of  old  in  the 
same  line,  who  "  wandered  in  deserts,  and  in  mountains, 
and  in  dens,  and  in  caves  of  the  earth."  In  this  line  we 
would  stand. 

The  religious  element  being  thus  the  central  one  in 
the  history  of  this  world,  our  next  inquiry  is,  whether 
its  free  and  legitimate  expansion  would  secure  all  that 
belongs  to  the  w ell-being  of  society.  Is  it  through  this 
that  the  Divine  idea  must  find  its  realization  and  coun 
terpart  ? 

That  this  is  so  we  believe,  in  the  first  place,  be 
cause  we  believe  in  the  word  of  God,  and  that  says  it 
is  so. 

Again,  we  believe  it  because  God  has  so  constituted 
this  world,  and,  doubtless,  the  universe,  that  he  who 
aims  at  and  secures  the  highest  good  in  any  department 
or  sphere,  will  also  incidentally,  and  so  best,  secure  the 


24 

greatest  amount  of  subordinate  good.  This  is  the  ge 
neral  law,  and  whatever  exceptions  to  it  there  may  seem 
to  be  are  accidental  and  temporary.  In  this  principle 
lies  the  secret  of  the  unconscious  power  wielded  by  our 
fathers. 

Upon  the  general  illustration  of  a  proposition  so  broad 
as  this  we  can  not  now  enter.  It  must  suffice  to  notice 
its  application  in  organic  systems  where  there  is  mutual 
relation  and  interaction  of  parts.  In  these  that  which 
is  highest  is  indeed  formed  by  the  lower,  but  when 
formed  it  reacts  upon  that  lower  and  becomes  necessary 
to  its  perfection.  Thus  the  brain,  the  highest  and  most 
central  part  of  the  body,  is  that  to  which  all  the  other 
parts  are  subordinate ;  but  this  reacts,  and  ministers  a 
pervading  and  vital  influence  to  every  inferior  part,  es 
sential  both  to  their  functions  and  growth,  and  the  per 
fection  of  .the  brain  will  both  imply  and  secure  that  of 
every  inferior  part. 

So  in  the  tree.  For  the  purposes  of  its  own  growth 
and  well-being  it  forms  the  leaves  highest  and  last ;  but 
it  is  only  as  these  expand  freely  in  the  air  and  sunlight 
that  the  roots  will  strike  themselves  deepest,  and  the 
trunk  be  enlarged,  and  the  vitality  prolonged.  The  tree 
grows  from  its  top.  And  here  is  the  model  of  political 
and  social  growth.  Society  is  built  up  like  an  indivi 
dual.  Like  a  tree,  it  grows  from  its  top.  Let  the  nu 
tritive  and  circulatory  movements  of  society  flow  freely 
on  and  up  to  the  quickening  and  expansion  of  an  intel 
lectual  life,  and  that  will  so  react — as  we  see  it  doing  in 
our  day,  by  the  application  of  science  to  art — as  to  give 
to  the  material  interests  themselves  a  range  and  power 


25 

s 
entirely  unknown  before.     And  then  let  the  top  still 

expand  into  the  higher  air  and  purer  light  of  beauty, 
and  of  moral  and  religious  truth,  and  in  every  fibre  at  the 
root  will  be  felt  the  upward  movement ;  and  there  will 
descend  nutritive  power  and  regulative  principles,  caus-  / 
ing  a  growth  that  will  defy  the  touch  of  time,  that  time 
will  only  strengthen  and  enlarge.  The  elaborated  wis 
dom  of  sages  will  descend  and  diffuse  itself  into  all  the 
currents  of  thought,  and  reach  the  springs  and  motives 
of  action,  and  will  eliminate  evils  by  those  gradual  or 
ganic  revolutions  which  come  on  like  the  tide,  but  which 
no  human  power  can  set  back. 

The  difficulty  with  past  civilizations  has  been  that  they 
did  not  form  an  adequate  top.  The  products  of  the 
physical  and  intellectual  life  circulated  in  and  for  them 
selves,  and  hence  plethora,  stagnation,  debility,  spasms, 
and  dissolution.  This  is  the  stereotyped  round  in  which 
families  and  nations  perish  through  prosperity.  But  if 
these  products  might  flow  on  and  up,  if  the  affections 
might  distribute  them  rather  than  appetite,  benevo 
lence  rather  than  ostentation,  and  principle  rather  than 
fashion  and  caprice  ;  if  they  might  minister  to  a  pure 
and  spiritual  religion,  and  be  controlled  and  distributed 
by  that,  it  is  not  for  the  imagination  to  depict  the 
beauty  and  blessedness  that  would  pervade  society. 

Particularly  do  we  believe  that  there  would  spring 
from  this  a  higher  culture  of  all  that  pertains  to 
beauty  ;  and  only  from  this  a  permanent  civil  liberty. 

There  has  been  an  impression  that  the  virtues  of  our 
fa  tliers  were  stern  'and  repulsive  of  beauty.  And  so  is 
the  mountain-top  stern,  where  the  storms  wrestle,  and 


26 

the  snow  abides,  and  the  ice  congeals  ;  but  from  that 
mountain-top  conies  the  beauty  that  looks  up  at  its  base, 
and  that  skirts  th|j  stream  on  its  long  way  to  the  ocean. 
So  will  the  sterner  virtues  always  melt  into  beauty 
when  the  storms  and  cold  with  which  they  have  to  con 
tend  have  passed  away.  Beauty  is  of  God,  and  it  can 
not  be  that  he  who  has  woven  the  web  of  light  in  its 
colors,  and  so  wrought  its  golden  threads  into  the  tis 
sue  of  nature,  who  paints  the  flower,  and  unfurls  the 
banner  of  sunset,  should  not  delight  in  all  beauty,  and 
that  it  should  not  proceed  from  all  godlikeness.  We 
believe,  indeed,  that  only  as  there  are  with  God  himself, 
the  high  and  stern  mountains  of  a  holiness  and  justice 
unapproachable,  does  there  proceed  from  him  the  smile 
that  makes  the  violet  glad.  Neither  Christ  nor  his 
apostles  concerned  themselves  with  art ;  they  did  not 
even  speak  of  it.  The  struggle  with  moral  evil  was  too 
earnest.  Let  this  be  overcome,  and  the  alliance  be 
tween  the  arts  and  the  baser  passions  dissolved,  and 
there  would  spring  up  in  connection  with  the  industry 
and  science  and  wealth  that  religion  would  produce,  a 
diffused  beauty  in  nature  and  in  art  of  which  we  have 
now  no  conception. 

That  there  can  be  permanent  civil  liberty  only 
through  the  religious  nature  is  evident,  because  it  is 
only  through  this  that  the  true  idea  of  a  state,  and  of 
its  relation  to  the  individual  will  ever  be  seen.  Through 
the  awakening  in  each  man,  and  the  growth  of  those 
powers  by  which  he  is  connected  with  God  and  with, 
immortality,  and  is  bound  above  all  things  to  conform 
his  spiritual  nature  to  its  law,  the  individual  becomes 


an  end  in  himself,  and  thus  finds  a  ground  for  demand 
ing  that  nothing  shall  exist,  wEether  in  Church  or  in 
state,  that  may  stand  between  him  and  the  freest,  and 
highest  expansion  of  these  powers  ;  nothing  which  shall 
make  use  of  him  for  its  own  sake,  and  so  degrade  him 
from  a  person  into  a  thing.  This  is  the  principle  con 
tended  for  by  our  fathers.  On  this  ground  man  has  a 
right  to  claim  that  outward  institutions,  civil  and  reli 
gious,  shall  be  for  the  individual ;  shall  be  means  and 
conditions  of  growth  to  his  higher  powers,  as  the 
air,  and  light,  and  food  are  of  the  growth  of  the  body ; 
and  if  they  are  not  so,  or  are  obstructive  of  that  end, 
then,  on  the  same  ground,  he  has  a  right  to  remove  and 
destroy  them.  The  Church  and  the  state  can  be 
come  a  part  of  the  beautiful  unity  in  the  Divine  plan, 
and  have  a  right  to  be,  only  as  they  fit  the  individual 
who  comes  under  their  agency  for  a  higher  sphere  ;  and 
they  are  perfect,  and  from  God,  just  in  proportion  as 
they  furnish  the  best  possible  conditions  of  individual 
growth  in  all  that  belongs  to  a  true  manhood.  In  the 
light  of  these  powers  man  is  seen  to  have  worth  and 
dignity,  rights  to  have  sacredness,  and  the  life  of  the  low 
liest  is  invested  with  a  solemn  grandeur.  Here,  indeed, 
is'  the  basis  of  rights,  and  so  of  that  freedom  which 
springs  from  rights  and  respects  rights,  w^hich  has  God 
for  its  author,  the  good  of  all  through  that  of  each  for 
its  end,  and  for  which,  in  the  light  of  reason  and  con 
science,  a  man  may  lay  down  his  life. 

Now  what  we  ask,  and  all  that  we  ask  is,  institutions, 
both  civil  and  religious,  pervaded  by  this  freedom,  flexi 
ble  to  the  demands  of  individual  growth ;  and  the  right 


28 

of  the  people  to  judge  what  modifications  that  may 
require.  Especially  do  we  demand,  in  the  name  of  hu 
manity  and  of  God,  religious  freedom.  Upon  that 
all  other  freedom  rests.  On  this  subject  especially  do 
we  demand  the  right  of  free  action  and  of  free  speech, 
not  only  in  the  church  but  in  the  street,  and  the  day  is 
not  yet  when  that  can  be  taken  from  us. 

We  believe  that  government  and  rulers  are  for 
the  people,  the  church  and  the  clergy  for  the  laity, 
and  that  God  has  given  to  men  the  right,  as  in  their 
civil,  so  in  their  religious  capacity,  honestly  using  all 
the  light  he  has  given  them,  whether  of  reason  or  of 
revelation,  so  to  organize  themselves,  both  in  Church 
and  state,  as  will  best  secure  civil  rights  and  spiritual 
growth  ;  and  organizations  so  originated  and  so  result 
ing  we  believe  to  be  of  God.  They  are  not  rebellion, 
they  are  not  schism ;  they  are  component  parts  of  God's 
one  great  and  free  kingdom  which  he  will  love,  and  own, 
and  bless,  "and  they  ought  to  be  recognized  as  such. 
His  sun  has  not  shone  less  brightly,  nor  his  rain  and 
dew  descended  less  bountifully  upon  these  United 
States  since  they  organized  themselves  thus,  than  when 
governed  by  one  who  was  "  king  by  the  grace  of  God  ;" 
nor  have  the  sunshine  of  his  love,  and  the  rain  and 
dews  of  his  grace  been  less  abundant  upon  our  churches 
than  upon  those  governed  and  blessed  by  popes  and 
prelates. 

Opposed  to  the  free  and  flexible  systems  which  this 
principle  would  form  are  those — and  they  include  all 
others — which  have  an  end  in  themselves,  to  which  the 
individual  is  squared,  and  hewed,  and  bent,  and  made 


29 

subservient.     Under  these  there  will  be,  not  true  free 
dom,  but  a  mixture  of  license   and   restraint.     Those 
who  manage  them  are  willing  that  the  productive  facul 
ties  of  man  should  be  sharpened  to  any  extent ;  they 
favor  caste,  or  something  equivalent,  for  that  purpose. 
They  give  full  scope  to  the  sensitive  and  sensuous  na 
ture  ;  they  patronize  and  subsidize  the  fine  arts ;  they 
provide  processions,  and  games,  and  books  of  sports  for 
the  people,  and  they  have  standing  armies  to  keep  them 
in  order.     If  the  sugar-plum  will  not  do,  they  have  the 
whip.     But,  recognizing  instinctively  the  main  doctrine 
of  this  discourse,  they  uniformly  either  dwarf  or  per 
vert  the  religious  nature.     They  intervene  in  every  pos 
sible  way  between  man  and  his  Maker,  assuming  ghostly 
powers,  and  constructing  conduits  and  channels  by  which 
the  grace  of  God  may  be  conveyed   to   the   profane 
people  who  may  not   have  immediate  access  to  Him. 
This  is  their  great  resource.   This  done,  they  may  mock 
at  revolution  and  bide  their  time,  knowing  that  when  the 
Louis  Philippe,  or  the  Louis  Napoleon,  or  Santa  Anna,  that 
is  sure  to  come  shall  appear,  the  bewildered  and  helpless 
people  will  relapse  into  monarchy.     They  think  little  of 
the  crimes  and  vices  which  spring  from  the  depraved  ap 
petites  and  passions  ;  and  if  the  clergy  will  pray  accord 
ing  to  the  rubric  and  conform  to  the  canons,  they  may  be 
indolent,  inefficient,  dishonest,  licentious,  profane,  with 
out  rebuke.   But  if  a  clergyman  cannot  wear  a  stole,  or  a 
surplice,  or  a  white  gown,  or  a  black  one ;  if  a  few  , 
Christians  meet,  in  a  private  house  even,  for  the  study 
of  the  Scriptures  and  for  prayer ;  if  the  Madiai  read 
the  Bible ;  if  Miss  Cunningham  distribute  a  Bible  and 


30 

Pilgrim's  Progress,  then  come  confiscations,  imprison 
ments,  banishment,  death.  It  is  for  those  who  do  these 
things  that  the  dungeon,  and  the  slow  fire,  and  the  rack 
are  prepared.  It  is  these  whom  malice  pursues  after 
death,  and  casts  out  and  buries  with  the  burial  of  a  dog. 
Those  who  use  missals  and  say  prayers,  they  like ;  those 
who  read  the  Bible  and  pray,  they  persecute. 

There  is  no  book  that  they  so  fear  as  they  do  the 
Bible ;  none  that  they  are  so  afraid  to  have  the  children 
read.  They  keep  it  out  Aof  their  schools,  and  of  their 
seats  of  power,  as  they  would  the  plague.  They  burn 
it.  They  can  evade  any  thing,  and  stand  before  any 
thing  but  the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  the  Word 
of  God. 

Such  systems,  whether  called  Christian  or  heathen, 
are  essentially  the  same.  They  wish  to  use  man  as  a 
thing,  and  so  intervene  between  him  and  God.  Under 
them  civilization  may  advance  far,  and  aggregate  power 
accumulate,  and  endure  long,  but  man  will  deteriorate, 
and  destruction  from  without  or  within  is  certain.  Still, 
when  one  system  is  destroyed,  another  will  arise.  Forms 
may  be  changed,  but  the  spirit  will  be  the  same ;  revo 
lution  may  succeed  revolution,  till  they  shall  have  as 
little  significance  as  street  brawls,  and  there  be  as  many 
days  of  July  as  there  are  days  in  July,  but  there  will 
be  balanced,  and  permanent  freedom  only  as  there  is 
religion  in  liberty. 

As  might  be  anticipated  from  what  has  been  said, 
the  special  support  of  all  such  systems,  aside  from  phy 
sical  force,  has  been  in  an  appeal  to  the  religious  na 
ture.  An  exclusive  divine  right  has  been  claimed. 


31 

That  of  prelates  the  Pilgrims  rejected ;  that  of  kings 
they  conceded.  Now,  that  of  kings  is  exploded,  at  least 
here.  We  put  it  on  the  same  footing  as  the  Divine  right 
of  constables.  That  of  prelates,  being  more  closely 
connected  with  that  religious  nature  from  which  is  all 
our  hope,  but  into  which  every  superstition  strikes  its 
roots,  is  still  conceded  by  many,  and  is  at  this  moment 
the  one  antagonistic  element  among  us  to  the  spirit  and 
principles  of  our  fathers.  The  Pope  and  certain  bish 
ops  claim  a  divine  right,  received  by  transmission  in  an 
unbroken  line  from  the  Apostles,  to  govern  the  Church  ; 
and  in  connection  with  this  they  claim  the  power  either 
to  change  bread  into  flesh  and  wine  into  blood. 

o 

or  to  communicate  some  virtue  to  the  sacraments  which 
they  would  not  have  if  administered  by  persons  ap 
pointed  for  that  purpose  in  some  other  way.  Is  this 
claim  valid  ?  If  so,  then  Popery  and  Puseyism  are 
right,  and  all  Protestants,  Church  of  England  and  all, 
are  schismatics  and  heretics.  If  so,  there  are  blessings 
in  Christianity  which  we  cannot  have  by  going  directly 
to  God.  These  men  hold  them  in  their  hands,  and  the 
whole  race  is  at  their  mercy.  If  so,  Christ  is  not  the 
only  priest  under  the  new  dispensation,  and  the  benefit 
of  the  sacraments  will  not  be  wholly  from  him  through 
faith,  but  partly,  at  least,  from  a  mysterious  virtue  in 
the  elements  which  these  persons  only  can  give.  This 
claim  we  reject  utterly.  We  say  that  Christ  has  made 
all  his  people  "  Kings  and  priests  unto  God,"  and  no 
thing  shall  take  from  us  the  right  to  go  directly  to  God 
through  the  one  great  High  Priest.  All  systems  based 
on  this  claim  are  and  must  be  exclusive  and  intolerant, 


32 

and  have  always  been  connected  with  an  ignorant  and 
oppressed  people. 

Our  principles,  on  the  other  hand,  forbid  exclusive- 
ness,  and  whatever  of  this  we  may  have,  is  due,  not  to 
them,  but  to  personal  infirmity.  They  call  upon  us 
to  exercise  a  large  charity.  Give  us  those  essential 
conditions  through  which  the  spiritual  nature  may  be 
best  developed ;  give  us  the  right  of  private  judgment; 
give  us  the  Bible  ; — and  here  I  wish  the  time  would  per 
mit  me  to  repeat  to  you  fully  the  recent  words  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Primate  of  England,  pressed 
from  him  in  his  conflict  with  Popery,  in  which  he  stands, 
not  for  "  the  Bible  interpreted  by  the  prayer-book," — 
that  would  not  do  for  him, — but  for  the  Bible  alone, 
and  says,  "Whatever  is  not  absolutely  declared 
therein,  and  yet  claims  to  be  implicitly  received,  I 
look  upon  with  suspicion,"  thus  sanctioning  the  very 
principle  contended  for  by  Robinson,  and  all  that 
he  contended  for ; — Give  us,  I  say,  the  Bible,  and 
that  alone  as  our  standard  ;  and  the  doctrine  of  justifi 
cation  by  faith  so  far  as  to  exclude  all  priestly  interven 
tion  between  us  and  God,  and  we  can  feel  that  we  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  multitude  of  our  brethren 
of  every  name — with  the  Hollanders  who  had  the  same 
spirit  with  the  Puritans — with  the  Huguenots,  those 
nobles  in  God's  kingdom  than  whom  none  were  ever 
nobler — with  the  Presbyterians,  whose  fathers  strug 
gled  in  Scotland,  as  ours  did  in  England — with  the 
the  great  company  of  Methodists  and  Baptists,  and 
also  with  our  Episcopal  brethren,  so  far  as  they 
will  permit  us.  "We  would  gladly  embrace  them 


33 

with  both  arms."  We  do  not  object  to  Episcopacy 
as  a  form  of  government  preferred  by  the  people, 
but  to  its  being  imposed  upon  us  as  exclusively  of 
divine  right,  and  to  that  spirit  of  the  clergy  generally, 
and  of  the  laity  increasingly,  which  says,  "  Stand  by 
thyself,  I  am  holier  than  thou."  "  I  belong  to  a  church, 
and  you  do  not."  "  I  have  a  right  to  preach  and  to 
administer  the  sacraments,  and  you  have  not."  "  There 
are  blessings  in  Christianity  which  you  can  have  only 
by  coining  to  us," — "  an  all-grasping"  spirit  "  which  gives 
no  quarter,  allows  no  truce,  but  demands  an  uncondi 
tional  submission."  If  history  did  not  instruct  us  in  the 
uniform  tendency  of  this  exclusive  principle,  we  might 
be  surprised  to  hear  the  excellent  and  venerable  bishops 
in  their  late  address,  while  they  claim  a  middle  place 
between  the  Romanists  and  us,  complain  of  the  treat 
ment  they  receive  from  them,  and  then  tunrat  once  and 
treat  us  in  the  same  manner,  not  allowing  that  we  are 
Churches  at  all,  or  bodies  of  Christians  eren,  but  only 
"  forms  of  error."  "  On  the  one^hand,"  say  they,  "  we 
behold  an  all-grasping  Romanism  which  gives  no  quar 
ter,  allows  no  truce,  but  demands  an  unconditional  sub 
mission.  On  the  other  hand  are  various  forms  of  error 
still  pervaded,  more  or  less  by  the  true  spirit  of  Christ 
ianity,  but  constantly  breaking  into  fragments,  and 
steadily  tending  to  latitudinarianism  and  infidelity."*  In 
exclusiveness  and  unconscious  misrepresentation  can 
any  thing  go  beyond  this  ?  Here  it  is — no  quarter,  no 
truce,  but  unconditional  submission — and  that,  too,  to 


*  Triennial  Convention,  New- York. 
3 


34 

those  who  hold  precisely  the  same  relation  to  the  Ro 
manists  that  we  hold  to  them — unconditional  submis 
sion,  or  we  must^be  given  over  to  "uncovenanted  mercies," 
and  infidelity  and  perdition.  Now  all  this  we  greatly 
regret.  Most  gladly  would  we  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  them  and  try  to  do  the  work  of  our  com 
mon  Master.  We  will  try  to  do  it  still ;  we  too  have  a 
ministry  and  ordinances  that  we  think  are  of  divine 
institution ;  we  have  an  open  Bible  and  a  merciful  God 
and  Saviour.  If  He  shall  show  us  that  we  are  wrong, 
that  he  does  not  intend  to  work  in  accordance  with  the 
general  principle  and  scheme  of  freedom  of  which  I 
have  spoken,  that  the  labors  and  sufferings  and  great 
promise  of  the  past  were  all  vain  and  delusive,  we  will 
abandon  our  cherished  associations  for  the  dear  sake  of 
Him  whom  our  fathers  at  least  sought  to  follow.  We 
will  then  give  in  our  unconditional  submission. 

But  to  us  the  prospect  is  not  altogether  dark.  We 
are  encouraged  by  the  remembrance  of  the  blessing  of 
God  in  the  past,  and  we  hope  he  will  continue  to  bless 
us.  We  do  not  believe,  as  they  seem  to  think,  that  his 
past  signal  blessings  have  been  an  unaccountable  mis 
take  which  he  will  rectify  in  future ;  but  rather,  if  we 
shall  not  prove  recreant,  that  they  are  but  earnests  of 
greater  blessings  to  come.  If  we  see  among  us  tenden 
cies  to  be  struggled  against,  requiring  wisdom  and 
prayer,  surely  we  are  not  alone  in  this.  We  had  sup 
posed  that  we  were  gaining  'strength,  and  not  only  we, 
but  the  great  body  of  kindred  churches.  We  suppose 
so  still,  'and  that" the  prospect  for  the  diffusion  and  ulti 
mate  triumph,  substantially,  of  the  great  principles  of 


35 

religious  and  civil  freedom  held  by  the  Puritans,  was 
never  more  encouraging.  Those  principles  that  were 
cabined  in  the  May  Flower — the  same  once  inclosed  by 
the  walls  of  an  upper  chamber  in  Jerusalem — and  that, 
two  hundred  and  thirty-three  years  ago,  this  day,  were 
first  breathed  into  the  atmosphere  of  this  continent  from 
Plymouth  Rock,  have  seemed  to  abide  in  it  there  as  a 
mighty  spell,  and  have  so  diffused  and  mingled  them 
selves  with  it  every  where,  that  the  whole  people 
breathe  them  in  as  with  the  very  breath  of  their  life  ; 
and  so  that  no  chemistry  of  tyranny,  civil  or  ecclesiasti 
cal,  can  ever  get  them  out.  They  were  never  as  strong 
as  they  are  to-day.  They  make  little  show  of  unity  by 
great  convocations.  They  affect  no  pomp,  and  provide 
no  prizes  for  a  worldly  ambition.  They  are  in  the 
world  under  the  same  aspect  and  conditions  as  Christ 
himself  was — as  spiritual  Christianity,  and  truth,  and 
civil  liberty  have  always  been.  Wealth  does  not  gravi 
tate  toward  them;  fashion  has  no  affinity  for  them. 
The  votaries  of  these  more  often  detach  themselves  and 
float  to  other  centres.  In  their  simplicity  they  stand, 
like  the  heavens,  unpropped  by  visible  pillars.  They 
seem,  if  not  born,  yet  as  it  were  born  again  for  this  con 
tinent  and  this  age,  and  for  that  oceanic  breadth  and 
depth  of  movement  which  is  clearly  before  society  and 
the  Church.  They  ally  themselves  with  all  that  is  pe 
culiar  in  our  free  institutions,  with  all  that  is  most 
simple  and  grand  in  the  works  of  God,  with  all  that  is 
free  and  mighty  in  the  movements  of  the  elements, 
with  all  that  is  comprehensive  in  charity,  and  great  in 
effort  and  self-sacrifice.  Like  the  electric  fluid,  they  are 


36 

subtle  and  pervasive,  often  working  silently,  and  seen 
only  in  their  effects  as  they  quicken  the  growth  of  the 
plants  of  righteousness,  and  crystallize  the  gems  that 
are  to  be  set  in  the  diadem  of  the  Redeemer.  But 
when  the  storm  shall  come,  if  come  it  must,  that  final 
storm  that  is  to  shake  "not  the  earth  only,  but  also 
heaven,"  "  that  those  things  which  cannot  be  shaken  may 
remain,  then  they  will  be  abroad  in  their  might ;  now 
imperceptibly  controlling  affinities,  and  now  flashing  out 
in  their  brightness,  and  speaking  in  thunder-tones  in  the 
moral  and  political  heavens.  To  the  ears  of  the  op 
pressed  in  every  land  those  tones  will  be  as  music.  To 
the  grave  where  freedom  may  still  be  buried,  they  will 
be  as  the  trump  of  God.  She  will  hear  them  and  come 
forth  clothed  in  the  garments  of  her  immortality,  and 
the  nations  shall  walk  and  dwell  with  her. 

These  principles  we  receive.  We  wish  no  antago 
nism  with  any  body,  or  any  thing,  except  that  which 
would  be  necessitated  by  faithfulness  to  them.  We 
wish  to  know  where,  and  through  what  it  is  that  God 
is  working,  and  to  work  with  him.  This  we  would  do 
in  peace,  and  without  being  persecuted,  or  reviled,  or 
cast  out,  if  we  may :  but  at  all  hazards  we  would  work 
with  Him.  This  it  is,  and  not  mere  freedom,  civil  or 
religious,  that  is  to  save  us  ;  and  we  receive  these  prin 
ciples  because  we  believe  that  God  is  working  through 
them,  and  that  by  them,  as  by  the  sling  and  stone,  de 
liverance  is  to  come.  We  receive  them  because  we 
believe  that  the  might  of  Omnipotence  is  in  them;  and 
that  the  promise  of  the  Immutable  One  is  theirs. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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REC'D  LD     JUL  1 

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,  p-T^,*,,  !.  .    4.-«Ti"                             University  of  California 
Berkeley 

Pamphlet 

Binder 

Gaylord  Bros..  Inc. 
Stockton,  Calif. 

T.M.  Reg.  U.S.  Pat.  Off. 


